16
   

Liberals sending out fake powders and fake bombs pretending to be conservatives.

 
 
revelette1
 
  3  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 09:04 am
@hightor,
All things end in time, even this Trumpian age will end at some point and hopefully all these conspiracy mongers will fade back into obscurity. Meanwhile they are up 12 bombs with all the components in the bomb capable of being a bomb, someone either didn't want it to go off and or they didn't know what they were doing. Either situation is bad.

Trump is of course worried the media is not talking politics and told republicans to go vote. Along with blaming the media for reporting news and being facts checkers to Trump's lies. In NYC today, they had to evacuate a school because of the bomb addressed to Clapper was found in the sorting station place in NYC next to all kinds of vulnerable places.

They seem to zeroing in on the place of origin, around a Florida auto parts (or something store) and a male brought in for questioning.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  5  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 09:21 am
@Setanta,
This fake arrest today is just to distract from the above news!
revelette1
 
  2  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 09:28 am
@Walter Hinteler,
Imagine if the targets of bombs were all high profile republicans. Don't you think Trump and republicans would have been all over it on the news? Democrats would have had to run and hide from shame by the time they got done with them.

I don't know about anyone else, but I found myself watching that white van be covered up for a good five minutes.
Region Philbis
 
  2  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 09:29 am
@revelette1,

instead we get this sort of thing from Doofus...

https://i.imgur.com/FIyCGYd.jpg
0 Replies
 
Olivier5
 
  3  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 09:32 am
Quote:
Police have also towed a van in Plantation, Florida, that appears to be covered in pro-Republican bumper stickers in connection with the arrest, according to reports.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/florida-man-arrested-mail-bombs-packages-2018-10/amp

Surprise surprise!
hightor
 
  6  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 09:33 am
‘False Flag’ Theory on Pipe Bombs Zooms From Right-Wing Fringe to Mainstream
Quote:
Just hours after the news broke this week that explosive devices had been sent to Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats, a conspiracy theory began to take shape in certain corners of conservative media.

The bombs, this theory went, were not actually part of a plot to harm Democrats, but were a “false flag” operation concocted by leftists in order to paint conservatives as violent radicals ahead of the elections next month.

“These ‘Suspicious Package’ stories are false flags, carefully planned for the midterms,” tweeted Jacob Wohl, a pro-Trump internet troll who writes for Gateway Pundit, a right-wing news site.

By nightfall, as more explosives were discovered addressed to Representative Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, and Eric H. Holder Jr., an attorney general under Mr. Obama, the fact-free explanation had gelled: The bombs were props, planted by Democratic operatives and amplified by a biased liberal media. A woman arrived at a debate between the two candidates for Florida governor, Ron DeSantis and Andrew Gillum, with a sign that read “Democrats Fake News Fake Bombs.” Lou Dobbs, the Fox Business host and confidant of President Trump, echoed that line in a tweet that he later deleted.

Conspiratorial thinking has always been with us — the grassy knoll, the moon landing, the Freemasons. But it has been turbocharged in the Trump era, as cable news networks and pliant social media networks allow hastily assembled theories to spread to millions in an instant. Often, by the time the official, evidence-based explanation has taken shape, it has already been drowned out by a megaphonic chorus of cranks and attention-hungry partisans.

“The process by which something gets called a false flag has accelerated,” said Anna Merlan, the author of “Republic of Lies,” a coming book about conspiracy theories. “People who make a living conspiracy-peddling are in an arms race with each other, so there’s a rush to stake out that territory and start spinning their narratives about what happened.”

Within hours of the first bomb’s discovery, conservative media figures were openly speculating about the true motives behind the campaign. Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and other high-profile commentators flocked to an alternative narrative that could explain the targeted threats to top Democrats without blaming those Democrats’ political opponents.

“Republicans just don’t do this kind of thing,” Mr. Limbaugh said on his radio show.
(Critics quickly provided Mr. Limbaugh with plenty of counterexamples, including abortion clinic bombings committed by right-wing extremists.)

As prominent conservatives tiptoed around the conspiracy theory swamps, the right-wing internet dove in headfirst. Users on a pro-Trump Reddit forum called r/the_donald frantically assembled evidence to buttress the unfounded theory that the bombs were a left-wing setup. Conservatives on Facebook and Twitter distilled the theory into memes and talking points that were shared thousands of times. Groups originally formed to promote QAnon, a sprawling pro-Trump conspiracy theory, latched on and turned up the volume even higher.

Historically, “false flag” conspiracy theories — named for a naval maneuver in which a ship flies a different country’s flag in order to trick enemies into retreating or to facilitate an escape — have remained on the edges of American discourse. Alex Jones, the conspiracy-theory-loving Infowars founder, was labeled a crank and worse for theorizing that the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were an “inside job,” and suggesting that the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School was an elaborate hoax concocted in order to promote gun control.

Mr. Jones has been largely pushed to the fringes of the internet — kicked off Twitter, Facebook and a dozen other services — and his cries for attention now seem mostly pitiful. (This week, he was filmed yelling at a pile of manure outside a rally for President Trump in Texas.)

But his spirit lives on in the larger universe of pro-Trump media, which has fused the conspiratorial grandeur of Infowars with an unshakable faith in Mr. Trump’s righteousness. Conspiracy theorists who might once have resorted to handing out subway pamphlets and shouting from street corners have found hungry, durable audiences on cable news shows and social networks. And false flag philosophy — the idea that powerful groups stage threats and tragic events to advance their agendas — is now a bizarrely common element of national news stories.

“The reason we’re seeing more false flag narratives is not that there are necessarily more of them, but that they’re more visible,” Ms. Merlan said. “It’s much easier for a casual news consumer to see them on Twitter.”

Conspiracy theories most often rise around fast-moving news events, like mass shootings and bomb threats, in which fuzzy initial reports often give way to more accurate explanations later on. And sometimes, those questioning the most apparent motives turn out to be justified.

Last year, a string of bomb threats against Jewish institutions in the United States was thought to be an act of anti-Semitic intimidation until police apprehended a Jewish teenager in Israel, whom they suspected of making the threats. The 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando was thought to be an anti-L.G.B.T. hate crime until further evidence suggested the shooter had no idea it was a gay club.

One appeal of heat-of-the-moment conspiracy theories is that they allow for blame-shifting. Candace Owens, a right-wing activist and media personality who has been invited to the White House, earlier this week responded to the bombs by tweeting that “these leftists are going ALL OUT for midterms.” (Ms. Owens, who is now the communications director for the conservative student group Turning Point USA, appeared on Infowars with Mr. Jones as recently as last year.) She later deleted the tweet, but wrote another one in which she said that she still believed that “when it comes to political violence, the left is the likely culprit.”

There are structural reasons for the conspiracy theory boom. Social media platforms like YouTube, Reddit and Facebook [and A2K!] have allowed fringe thinkers to bypass traditional gatekeepers and reach millions of people directly. In addition, the dominance of Fox News and other partisan media outlets has created a flourishing market for conspiracy-driven outrage. And a polarized electorate has eagerly lapped up explanations for major news events that conform to their views.

The desire for politically convenient explanations is not contained to the right. Soon after the bombs were reported, and before key facts about them were known, liberals on Twitter adopted the term “MAGAbomb” to describe the campaign, referring both to the explosive devices and to Mr. Trump’s signature rallying cry.

It is Mr. Trump, of course, who has done more than any other prominent figure to promote (or in the case of the racist conspiracy theory about Mr. Obama’s birth certificate, to popularize) a number of conspiracy theories. Other theories have taken root among his followers — like Pizzagate, QAnon and the baseless, sensational claims made about Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh of sexual assault — often without official censure.

“We have a president who pushes these ideas because he built a coalition that believes in conspiracy theories,” said Joseph Uscinski, an associate professor of political science at the University of Miami who studies conspiracy theories. “He has to continue pushing these ideas to keep his people motivated.”

Conspiracy theories play especially well on social media, which amplifies provocative and engaging content by design and often rewards misinformation with increased distribution. One study published this year, led by M.I.T. researchers, found that on Twitter, falsehoods were 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than accurate news.

Conspiracy theories are not false news, exactly. They often rely on a speck of doubt, or a gap in the evidentiary trail, to make a bold claim, even if they ignore some of the other available proof. But they do travel over the same networks, and stand out from more accurate — if predictable — stories in much the same way.

Fact-checking, long offered as a possible antidote to misinformation, is not likely to solve the problem. The available data on the effectiveness of fact-checking, especially on social media, is mixed. Facebook halted a program last year that labeled false news stories with red flags, after finding that the labels actually induced more people to click. The company’s current approach is to decrease the visibility of stories labeled false by third-party fact-checkers, in hopes of starving them of oxygen.

The real solution, of course, is likely to be cultural, rather than technological. A White House occupied by a conspiracist-in-chief is not likely to do much to quell the spread of implausible narratives, nor is a conservative media apparatus that profits from the popularity of these theories. As long as Mr. Trump is in office, conspiracy theorists will continue to raise the specter of false flags, and some in power will feel empowered to take them seriously.

“If we had President Jeb Bush, we wouldn’t be wondering if he believed these theories,” Mr. Uscinski said.


NYT
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  5  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 09:36 am
Really, what is the sense of making these stupid claims before the facts have been determined? I'm hoping McG will provide an answer. Something more substantial than, "I was only joking."
revelette1
 
  3  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 09:44 am
@Olivier5,
I wouldn't be surprised if some will be saying, hey, the man arrested is probably a democrat and his van is a prop with intent to fool people into believing the alleged man under arrest is a right wing Trump supporter. You can't reason with these folks. I am hoping some more reasonable establishment republicans will start to drown out these people and for us on the left, maybe we should look for more reasonable people too. Or look in the mirror.
farmerman
 
  4  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 09:46 am
@Olivier5,
The guy is apparently a nut case, and not associated with any party . Ill bet we see more "POI ".

Im more amazed at the level of built in forensics that we dont get told about
1 Stamp inventory control is able to be tagged down to the individual stamps

2The 'puter fonts have a built in print "Taggant". I did not know that.

3 The US is one of the few nations(along ith China) that still does NOT require taggants in explosives or blast agent components.

Too bad that such information is leaked by the news because future terrorists are being taught what to avoid doing.

najmelliw
 
  3  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 09:48 am
@hightor,
hightor wrote:

Really, what is the sense of making these stupid claims before the facts have been determined? I'm hoping McG will provide an answer. Something more substantial than, "I was only joking."


And I hope that Trump will voluntarily come forward, say that he is sorry and resign. However, I see the odds of either one happening being close to 'when hell freezes over twice'.

McG is more likely to come forward that it's all fake news, and that the FBI was in on it with the Dems to arrest an innocent republican.
0 Replies
 
Olivier5
 
  4  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 10:13 am
@revelette1,
The US right has become totally delusional, and bitterly aggressive. Yes, they will deny all the evidence and believe whatever they want to. Unfortunatel I don't think they will retract. It's not a mentality that can accept being wrong. They will double-down.
0 Replies
 
revelette1
 
  2  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 10:20 am
I'm kind of wondering if they are going to show coverage of the moving van all the way from Flo. to NY? Reminds me of OJ. The tarp is blowing in the wind. They have shown a picture of the man arrested. But like Blicker said on Monitoring Trump thread, he is innocent until proven guilty.

Update: they have stopped to fix it. Sorry. I just find all this attention on the moving van kind of odd. With officers on the back hanging on to it.
0 Replies
 
Olivier5
 
  3  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 10:22 am
@farmerman,
The American right is by and large mentally ill.

The suspect, a certain Cesar Sayoc Jr., is a registered Republican voter. Innocent until proven guilty of course, but my money is on these terrorist acts being inspired by the slew of anti-dem hatred whipped up for years by the repukes, the ultra-right and Trump.
0 Replies
 
revelette1
 
  3  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 10:44 am
So the president spoke of the arrest of the suspect. He briefly referred to "high profile" people, instead of offering sympathy by name. He did say violence has no place in politics (or something like that.) Personally I found it weak after his tweets, but, then I am biased.
0 Replies
 
McGentrix
 
  -1  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 12:03 pm
Originally, I was mocking this topic: "Conservatives sending out fake mailers and fake ads pretending to be progressives." I had no idea that it would spark such an interesting conversation.

It's good that whomever was behind this has been caught. I don't care for their political bent, it has no place in America and I also hope that the full force of the law is behind their prosecution.

Now, as for the personal bullshit and implications that someone like me might be behind it is absurd beyond belief. I am offended that anyone would make such an assumption.
Olivier5
 
  4  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 12:09 pm
@McGentrix,
Nice try.
McGentrix
 
  -1  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 12:12 pm
@Olivier5,
Olivier5 wrote:

Nice try.


???
0 Replies
 
revelette1
 
  3  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 01:11 pm
Finally some official sounding comforting words from the Justice Department, even Sessions was good as far as he can be.

Well, thankfully, will be busy with my grandkids the rest of today and tomorrow, so, ya'll won't see my post so often.
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  6  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 01:57 pm
@McGentrix,
Quote:
Mr. Sayoc appears to have been active on social media, where he shared conservative news stories and condemnations of liberal politicians.

On Facebook, Mr. Sayoc appeared to post frequently in right-wing circles. One profile, listed under the name “Cesar Altieri Randazzo,” belonged to Facebook groups including “The Trump American Party” and “Vote Trump 2020.” The account, which was suspended on Friday after reports that Mr. Sayoc was a suspect in the bombing case, shared photos of Mr. Sayoc attending political events and working out at the gym.

Throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, the account shared news stories from Breitbart, video clips from Fox News, and posts from pages like “Handcuffs for Hillary.” That year, the account included posted photos of Mr. Sayoc at a Trump campaign rally, wearing a red “Make American Great Again” hat.

A Twitter account, which shares much of the same imagery and language as posts found on Mr. Sayoc’s other social media accounts, has posted more than 1,200 times since April 2016. The account posted attacks on immigrants, gun-control advocates and prominent Democrats. In one tweet posted several weeks ago, the account posted a photo of Mr. Sayoc holding a “CNN Sucks” sign.

In another message, sent last month, it tweeted a threat to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., along with an aerial photo of what appeared to be Mr. Biden’s house.

NYT

In a previous post I said
Quote:
I'm hoping McG will provide an answer. Something more substantial than, "I was only joking."

Well....
McGentrix wrote:
Originally, I was mocking this topic: "Conservatives sending out fake mailers and fake ads pretending to be progressives."

Yes, of course. That goes for all the other Trump supporters blaming this on Dems too, I guess. Such a bunch of comedians.
Quote:
I had no idea that it would spark such an interesting conversation.

Oh.
farmerman
 
  3  
Fri 26 Oct, 2018 02:14 pm
@hightor,
what he said but I hant given McG as much thought till now. I dint believe his lame attempt at mitigating his dumass thread opener. He sounded serious enough to fool me into believing that he meant it.
That all changed when some of the facts came to light and McG just needed to spackle his statement up..
Still, Mr Sayoc, if guilty, is probably a lone NUT pure and simple(least I hope to hell), and by his actions we can see how some people are living on the edge of reality at all times. Just like Lenny in Steinbeck's classic. ""I done good huh George? huh?"
Sayoc's kinda twisted reality made him the self appointed angel of requital.
Yet, I dont think I can heap that on the GOP, (BUT, on the other hand, I CAN place some blame at the feet of our president who lies, uses duplicitous reasoning , and then denies it all in the very next tweet.
 

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